


Rapture R&R

by mango_roses (Ethomania)



Series: This Is All Yours [1]
Category: BioShock
Genre: Atlas is Not Frank Fontaine, Excessive Use of Proximity Mines, Fluff, Gen, M/M, just let turtleneck boy sleep...
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-12 08:34:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10486644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ethomania/pseuds/mango_roses
Summary: Jack's been trooping through Rapture ever since he got here, without a moment's rest. Now he's in Arcadia, and he just wants to sit down a spell.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Mood song:  
> alt-J --- Warm Foothills
> 
> Also there's no reason plotwise Atlas is a separate entity to Fontaine. Why not, tbh? I prefer him not being Fontaine.

"Come _on_ , boyo. It's not too far now." The radio encouraged Jack, spitting static at the end of each word. Jack's legs were sore, his knees ached, and he wanted nothing more than to just find somewhere safe, sit down and rest. He stumbled on his own feet, then, and just about managed to catch himself on the wreckage of a nearby first aid machine, and it occurred to him that he not only wanted to have a rest but to wash his sweater. It was filthy; covered in blood and grime, and smelled like decay and god knows what else. He gave a small sob, feeling just a little bit pathetic, before he regained his footing and continued on. 

Eventually Jack noticed that the ground beneath his feet was not slimy or hard or sticky for a change. It was soft, uneven, and a sweet scent filled the air. Initially he assumed that he'd accidentally walked onto a pile of bodies without noticing it, before he took another step and realised that there was no squelching sound and the smell was the sweetness of summer, not of decay. As if awakening from a tired dream, he looked around him and finally recognised that he was in a a copse of trees. Jack immediately decided that he was hallucinating, but the radio piped up again and Atlas was there with more words.

"Would you look at that. Somebody must be taking care of all these trees; would'a thought they'd died after everythin'." Jack looked around, blinking. Somebody'd grown trees at the bottom of the ocean. He didn't move, simply looked in awe at the flowerbuds decorating the branches like purple rust on a chain link fence. It was almost too much for a sleep-deprived brain to handle. Atlas coughed, regaining Jack's attention, before reminding him of the goal ahead. "You're almost to the Rollin' Hills now; just a few minutes further."

"Is there somewhere safe nearby?" Jack asked mistily as he continued to stagger his way down a sloping grassy hill. A parchment door slid open and revealed an even more beautiful copse; a pebbled path led up a small mound and to an iron-wrought table that was nestled beneath a flowering tree with wide green branches. A stream ran from one end of the room to the other, and Jack purposefully ignored the mangled body lying face down in the water. He wearily trudged up the path and moved to sit down at the table, before he realised the chairs were in the stream with the body. Atlas hummed and answered as Jack slid down the grassy side of the mound and retrieved one of the chairs. 

"By 'safe' I assume you mean 'not in immediate reach of the splicers'?" Atlas asked, a rhetorical question, and hummed as he thought about it it. "Well, no. Nowhere's safe unless you lock yourself in a bulkhead and hope for the best. There _are_ crawlspaces scattered around but most of them're probably full of dead things, water or soil. Best _'bed'_ for you, boyo, would probably be to find yourself a good corner to sit in and set up a perimeter. You've got that grenade launcher, don't you?" 

By then, Jack had pulled he chair up the mound, set it by the table and had sat down on it. He was actually slouched across the table, half-asleep, and when he didn't respond to Atlas right away there was a loud buzz of static, which woke up him with a start.  

"Yes?" Jack said as he sat up and put an arm across his eyes. 

"You're in no state to go toein' against anythin', are you lad?" Atlas huffed into the radio, and Jack shook his head.

"No..." Jack replied, using all of his will not to slump back down onto the table. Atlas sighed and let out a long groan, facing away from the receiver. Jack accepted his fate ad stood up, checking all of the guns and attempting to wipe a persistent smudge off of the pipe muzzle of his trusty pistol. As Jack frowned and reinvested himself into discovering just what exactly that smudge was, Atlas spoke again. 

"Right, there might be a good spot somewhere nearby. Go through the door just ahead of you and..." Atlas continued on, and Jack followed his directions to a T. 

\--

Several dead splicers and a few more stains on Jack's sweater later, the exhausted man came to the corner where Atlas had directed him to. The corner in question was a stone's throw away from a Circus o' Values machine, and the walls of the corner were wallpapered with Atlas' name. There was a small silence as Jack looked groggily up at the posters.

"Good decoration here." Jack said mistily, and the radio buzzed.

"What? Did one of those weird splicers put that 'Saturnalia' stuff all over the corner? Ah, typical. I'll find you somewhere else--"

"No, it's not that. There's just a lot of your posters. Everywhere." Jack said, and Atlas took a deep breath and waited a few moments before letting it back out again. There was a further stretch of quiet before Atlas spoke. This time, he sounded subdued, almost hushed. 

"Before this place went to hell, I cared about politics. Now I've had some thinking room, I've realised it's all just an excuse rich men make so they can't be blamed for killing people. I'm past all of that now; ignore the posters. I just want to see the sunlight again."  

He sounded subdued and sincere. Jack thought for a moment and chuckled to himself, before housing his grenade launcher off his shoulder and setting a wide perimeter of proximity mines, so hopefully any splicer who wanted to wear his scalp as a wig would be blown to smithereens while waking him up in the process.

He finally leant back against the corner and slid down until he sat, his elbows on his knees, and Atlas buzzed back in. "Are you settled down now, boyo?"

"As I'll ever be." Jack said warmly, nestling into the corner as he tried to get comfortable. He grunted and then closed his eyes, immediately feeling drowsy and beginning to drop off.

"Good; would you kindly fall asleep, now? Sooner you wake up, the faster we get to Ryan." At those words, Jack felt himself slip into sleep, like his body was suddenly given permission to rest and recuperate.


End file.
